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My favorite part of the Tower of London is definitely the ravens. Finally, some real animals up in this joint instead of ones made out of wire and chained by their ankles with sad, pained looks on their faces. And ravens are total bad-asses, otherwise known as assholes, and if you read my blog, you know I have a long and storied experience with asshole animals. These birds don’t mess around: they eat raw meat, raw eggs, and the occasional “treat” of whole rabbits. Yum. And they are huge. Just look at that guy.

But don’t misjudge them, there’s a softer side to the ravens, too. They mate for life, and that’s not a paltry commitment as they’re known to live a long time for bird-years. A raven named Jim Crow lived until he was 44 years old at the Tower. They can only be handled by their Yeoman Ravenmaster, who they consider to be another raven; anyone else would get their fingers taken off by their raven-beaks. Yeoman Ravenmaster: How’s that for a cool-as-hell job title?

“What do you do for work?”

“I’m an accountant, you?”

“Oh, nothing much. Just a Yeoman Ravenmaster at the Tower of London.”

“Oh, um. That’s cool. I mean, if you’re into that kind of thing.”

Bite me.

Raven house

But why are there ravens at the Tower? Well there’s a pretty cool reason. As the helpful sign pictured below explained to me, the legend is that King Charles ordered that all the ravens who had decided to make the grounds of the Tower their home be destroyed because picky astronomer John Flamsteed complained that they were flying around and messing up his work. Astronomers can be so annoying, am I right? However, before the birds were killed, Charlie got wind that there was a prophecy that his kingdom and the Tower would fall without the protection of the birds. This prophecy is likely linked to the legend of the giant Bran, whose name means “raven.” Bran ordered that his head be cut off while he was dying in battle and it be buried to protect the kingdom. The ravens symbolize the giant’s strength, which is nice, as I’d much rather come and visit ravens then a severed head. Just saying.

Anything that has a legend behind it is automatically awesome.

I think the ravens and the legend surrounding them are pretty awesome. Shout out the marketing people at the Tower though: why don’t you sell raven stuffed animals at the gift shop? I would have left with like five of those buddies, and I highly doubt I’m the only one. Get your marketing team on that, stat. As it was, I was left buying my niece a princess wand, which I told her a real princess from a real castle in England gave to me for her. She took it from me very reverently, looked it over, and then promptly asked me why it had a price tag on it if a “real princess” gave it to her. Move over, animals. Little kids can be assholes, too